Grants & Funding

Former GSA Treasurer Trudy Mackay has been honored with the 2016 Wolf Prize in Agriculture. Bestowed by Israel’s Wolf Foundation, the prize is sometimes considered to be “the Nobel Prize in Agriculture.”   Trudy F.C. Mackay, PhD William Neal Reynolds Distinguished University Professor of Biological Sciences and Associate Member of Entomology North Carolina State University…

NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) has issued a request for applications (RFA) for a new program that will bridge predoctoral and postdoctoral training. Its aim “is to encourage and retain outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated potential and interest in pursuing careers as independent cancer researchers.” Similar to NIH’s Pathway to Independence Award (which bridges postdoctoral training…

An article in the most recent issue of Science highlights a growing concern about the continued support of the biological databases on which our community depends. Indeed, 2015 GSA President Jasper Rine was quoted as saying these resources are “critical for our daily life as geneticists and biomedical researchers.” Many of the model organism databases (MODs) used…

Many of us have been there: you’ve attended seminars and workshops focused on transforming the way you teach, and you can’t wait to use what you’ve learned. However, examining the evidence behind evidence-based teaching and actually using the evidence-based teaching methods are very different beasts. If you aren’t quite sure how to incorporate active learning…

On December 16, 2015, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released an agency-wide strategic plan. This document does not replace the strategic planning process of the individual institutes and centers (ICs), rather it serves as an overarching framework for all of the ICs to incorporate into their strategic planning for the future. Development of the…

A Canadian network focused on rare diseases is playing matchmaker between clinicians and model organism researchers. Over half of children with rare, inherited monogenic diseases lack a molecular diagnosis. There are an estimated 7,000 monogenic diseases possible, and only about half of those have been implicated in human disease. The Rare Diseases: Models & Mechanisms…

The Gruber Foundation has issued a call for nominations for its 2016 Gruber International Prize Program, honoring leaders in Genetics, Cosmology, and Neuroscience. Each prize, which is accompanied by a $500,000 unrestricted monetary award, is designed both to recognize groundbreaking work in each field and to inspire additional efforts that affect fundamental shifts in knowledge and…

The National Science Foundation has funded a new mentoring initiative jointly organized by the GSA, American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), and American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). The Promoting Active Learning & Mentoring (PALM) Network was established to spark sustained biology education reform at diverse institutions through one-on-one long-term mentorships for faculty new to approaches…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released a funding opportunity announcement for the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (DP5). This program “supports exceptional investigators who wish to pursue independent research directly after completion of their terminal doctoral/research degree or clinical residency, thereby forgoing the traditional post-doctoral training period and accelerating their entry into an independent…

This blog post was originally written and published by the editorial staff of the MCB blog.  It is reprinted here with permission. For news and information about the MCB division, subscribe today. What were you doing before you came to the NSF? I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and Director of…

The National Science Foundation is seeking applications for its Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology program. The fellowships encourage independence at an early stage of the research career to permit Fellows to pursue their research and training goals in the most appropriate research locations regardless of the availability of funding for the Fellows at that site. The Directorate…